Quality Score Debates

I keep reading all of these debates about quality score on the forums, & even get into the occasional discussion at conferences, but I have to say… I’ve got some good news for you… Quality score isn’t nearly as big a deal as everyone makes it out to be.

Yes, you won’t get a lot of impressions if you have a low score (as in below 3 or 4), and yes – boosting a score from a “7” to a “9” might reduce your minimum bid from $.50 to $.05, but let me ask you this; “Would you rather have 5 or 10 sales a month from the traffic you’re bidding a nickel for, and getting an average position of #10 or #12, or would you like 300 to 500 sales a month by bidding high enough to actually be on the first page of Google?”

If you want the latter, you should stop beating your head against a wall hyper-focusing on how to get a “10” quality score, because all a “10” is going to get you is the ability to get 3% to 5% as much traffic as you would get if you competed with the big boys for a legitimate amount of traffic. If you want serious amounts of traffic, you’re going to have to bid to be at least in the top 5 or 6 spots, and unless there are less than that many advertisers, quality score won’t matter. I repeat; Quality score does not magically make nickel bids appear in the #1 or #2 spot for competitive keywords when others are bidding $1 or $2 for those same terms.

All a high quality score does is lower your minimum bid, but that’s a minimum bid that could end you up in position 10, 20, or even 30, not in the top 8 or 10 spots where the highest volumes of traffic are. If you’re competing for the top spots on Google, a quality score of 9 won’t be any cheaper than a quality score of 7. Trust me. Your time is better spent focusing on other aspects of your business.